New Delhi, February 6
Seeking to introduce radical changes in laws related to the prevention of child marriage and the protection of rights of women, the Law Commission has recommended to the government to bring a legislation declaring all marriages between minors as null and void.
At present, there is no law to declare such marriages as void even though the Hindu Marriage Act and the other laws fix marriages for a woman at 18 and a man 21 years.
“Marriage for both girls and boys below 18 years should be prohibited and that marriage below the age of 16 be made void, while those between 16 and 18 be made voidable,” the commission recommended.
But it took care of protecting the right of children born out of the minors’ marriages and recommended to recognise their legitimacy and ensure financial security to them by strengthening maintenance provisions.
Commission chairman Justice A.R. Lakshmanan said the purpose behind reforms of marital laws on these lines were to protect the rights of women and children but at the same time curb the practice of child marriage prevalent in many states.
The panel was fully aware of the plight of destitute children and, therefore, it had recommended that they should get adequate financial security.
Since under the definition of Section 375 of the IPC, the consensual age for a woman for sexual relation is 16, the commission could not go beyond it in recommending all marriages between a man below 21 years and woman below 18 as void.
But the recommendations of the panel fall short of the demand of the National Commission of Women, which had sought amendment to Section 375 of the IPC to increase the sexual consent age to 18 from the existing 16 to bring uniformity in all laws.
It also recommended that the registration of all marriages should be made compulsory as had been recommended by the Supreme Court.
The commission, which was of the view that the changes suggested would curb the tendency of
child marriages, also in another report on the Hindu Succession Act suggested certain important changes, including making father of a dead son right holder in his property if he died without a heir and not having bequeathed it in favour of someone.
It also suggested various other changes in the Succession Act, protecting the rights of daughters in father’s property, and simplification of the class-I heirs consisting of son, daughter, widow mother and father.
Both the reports were submitted by Justice Lakshamanan to law minister H.R. Bhardwaj with a suggestion that the government should initiate steps to reform the laws accordingly.
